3 A Levels for medicine when everyone else is doing 4

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DS is at a well-known grammar where 4 A levels is the norm for medicine applicants. He’s done his EPQ and is doing 3 sciences & maths A level. He wants to drop physics. School (strong on Oxbridge) say “because his peers are doing 4, his doing 3 will be seen as a less competitive application”. He’s getting good BMAT scores in practise but who knows on the day? He isn’t applying to Cambridge where l know many have taken 4 A levels. More interested in the London med schools. He’s emailed and asked and they just quote the standard “3 A levels required”. He doesn’t know his predicted grades yet but it’s more the risk of missing an offer together with the extra work load of the 4th A level that is bothering him. If many of his peers at school are doing 4 and he does 3 will admission a Tutor think “hmm despite going to X School he’s only take 3 A levels..”. His school have a huge cohort of medicine applicants every year.

Well I'm obviously on the wrong thread.

I think the pettiness of certain posts speaks volumes.

Back at you

I was meant to be discussing book clubs, but I seem to be in a parallel universe. Can I get back to my lavender & honey cake now please?

Hoghgyni that certainly wasn't aimed at you! Your post just seemed a little oblique! (But not juvenile and uber petty).

It was a bit random when read alongside the rest.

@mumsneedwine congratulations to you, your colleagues and your pupils. An excellent set of results - says a lot about the calibre of the teaching as well as the hard work of the pupils.

Amazing considering your slow teaching and the fact that they are not the very best children from the very best families studying at the very best universities. They will probably be complete failures in life, like England’s Chief Medical Officer who only did medicine at Manchester and Scotland’s who went to Glasgow. Or the head of medicine at Cambridge who was so stupid that he didn’t even go to a London university ( imagine!!!! ) let alone Oxbridge and had to study in Australia.

No wonder they have never got anywhere in their medical careers .

And for completeness I should add the CMO for NI ( Belfast ) and Wales ( Leeds).

@olga me and my colleagues are very proud of our bunch of non selective comp kids. They worked their socks off, as did we. My breakfast clinics were well attended, although this may be because I brought chocolate croissants.
We have now toasted them with several beers and may carry on doing so for a while yet 😁. Lovely evening for the pub garden. And one of my lots daddy's just sent us a bottle of Prosecco over. Just as well my thickie medic DD is finishing work late and can pick me up. Doubt she'll ever amount to much of a Dr but she's useful as a taxi.

Appreciating your replies mumsneedwine and olga,as mum of another nonselective comp kid who got 4 offers and is loving medschool.

Mmmmmm chocolate croissants. You sound like a lovely teacher @mumsneedwine

🍷🍷🥂🍻🍺🍹🍸🥃🍾

I may have drunk that much tonight 😂😂.
I try and treat every student as I'd want my kids treated. And chocolate at 7.30am really helps with inorganic chemistry.
DD arriving in an hour so better get back to my 🥂.

Perhaps you should make a thread all of your own with mumsneedwine in that case Woodenhillmum. Although mumsneedwine has made a sterling attempt to make this thread all about her/ her DD, in fact if you read the original post it concerns a DS at a high performing grammar being given advice by his school in relation to an application to the more competitive London medical schools. That's the basis on which OP invited responses. My own response was pretty targeted.

0lga I didn't respond to your earlier post as it wasn't in any way relevant to non fee paying parents such as the OP.

In short, perhaps posters could respond to the original post without having a go at people who do, or is that too altruistic an idea?

OP have given my advice. As have other parents, Admissions tutors, teachers and Drs. Make your own mind up which parts are useful. Obviously unless you go to London or Oxbridge you won't succeed as a Dr but you'll have a bloody good time studying medicine.
All about me. Isn't that a song ?

Some songs get tedious if sung too often mumsneedwine. The OP has already said thanks but the nonsense of the sideshow about medical schools not relevant to her post and schools like yours - again not relevant to her post - may well have pushed her away.

Hi, I’ve been trying to look through this re which A level choices would be the best choice.
My Dd will do chemistry and biology plus maths and physics to start with. The idea is that she will drop one and continue with three which she thought would mean dropping physics. She is better at physics which she doesn’t have to work as hard to get top grades but we had thought she would need maths more. There have been knowledgeable comments on here about physics being more useful. Can anyone give more information on this?

A lot of schools/6th form colleges don't allow physics to be taken without maths, so that might be tricky unless she sticks with 4 subjects. Or she could take maths, physics and chemistry.

Neither more useful. I'd suggest doing whichever she finds easiest as getting the best grade is most important thing. But I expect this will be disagreed with as 'schools like mine' know nothing. (I've worked in 5 so not sure which one is being referred too - 2 were so called super-selective).
DD driving her old mum home. In car there are Notts, UCL & Cambridge medics. One from a comp, one from a Grammar and one from Eton (he is very nice). I've lent them my phone and they have found the whole thing quite funny.
We have put McFly on in your honour goodby and all singing v loudly. It's all about yououiuououiu. They can't sing ! But are all going to classy nightclub after dropped me home.

V true about physics without maths - we allow it as long as they are taking 3 sciences. But some schools do need maths.

Some songs get tedious if sung too often

Know your place mumneedswine

Oh I do 😂😂😂. Tugging my forelock as we speak.
I have been dropped off and kids have all headed off to Spoons. Classy those Eton boys. They said they'd happily give any advice as a group but most importantly they all agreed : get the best 3 A Levels you can and ace the nasty UKCAT/BMAT. And chose what and how you want to learn - don't use some stupid made up league table.

What an enormous co-incidence, to have that full range of medics from that full range of schools driving you home mumsneedwine. So your comp educated DD goes to Notts (which you've said many, many times on these threads, so not outing), the grammar school kid goes to UCL and The Eton kid goes to Cambridge. How very, very stereotypical . And brings this thread hopefully to a close back at where we began, which was a post asking for advice about a grammar school DS aiming for UCL. Well, at least I stuck to the point!

Only 'quite funny' now? I find most Eton boys very polite. How grim.

Rufuscat this is just the experience of one very junior doctor but DS1 did Physics with no Maths at A level and had no problem with offers or through his six years at uni or in his first year as an F1. Whichever she prefers would be his advice; there's really no problem going forward with only GCSE Maths.

Just waiting for Paternas to appear and complete the routine

It is rather strange to see some posters castigated for drawing from their own experience on a public forum and then for poster who is carrying out the castigation to then go on to do likewise. Is this lack of self awareness or alternatively merely being full of self-importance?